Bathroom bomb threat causes evacuation at Delsea Middle School

FRANKLIN TWP. -- A bomb threat scrawled on a bathroom wall prompted the evacuation of the Delsea Regional Middle School Wednesday morning.
Delsea Superintendent Frank Borelli said that after a teacher spotted the message and reported it to the main office at about 9:30 a.m., the school, with an enrollment of 680 students, went into an immediate lockdown.

The threat was discovered on the wall of a toilet stall in a boys' bathroom.

"We went into a hard evacuation and walked the students to the high school," Borrelli said.

The middle schoolers went to the high school gymnasium and a bomb-detection dog was called in to go through the middle school, he said.

Messages went out to parents by way of a reverse-911 system called Global Connect.

One parent of a high school boy said she was confused by the message, which said there had been a bomb threat and that students had been evacuated safely to the high school.

"We thought we had it clear, but we'll do it again," Borelli said, to make sure parents knew the threat had been in the middle school only.

"We will send a letter home with students" on Wednesday, he said.

"Once we can return, we'll have a student assembly to make sure they're all OK, and the teachers, too," Borelli said at 11 a.m.

"I think it was very orderly. Only one parent asked to take a child out," he said.